When Mourning Comes
by Bratling
Summary: A wayward member of the NCIS team comes home in time to grieve... (Purposely publishing this before the season finale tonight!)


When Mourning Comes

By LauraBF

Disclaimer: Not mine. I hugged them, squeezed them, called them George, and then gave them back like a good girl. NCIS belongs to Donald P. Bellisario, Belisaurius Productions, Paramount Pictures, and Columbia Broadcasting Service Entertainment.

Author's Note: Sometimes things come to you in the middle of the night with fits of insomnia... this is one of them, which immediately prompted a bit of research. No offense meant. I've attempted to be accurate, but I'm as Christian as they come and working from online resources. My thanks to my long-time friend, TnJAGAz, my favorite beta reader ever, Wendy Scott, and a new friend, GeneaLady for looking this over.

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_"We die with the dying: see, they depart, and we go with them._

_"We are born with the dead: see, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree are of equal duration. A people without history is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments." _

_**-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding from "Four Quartets"**_

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Ziva arrived at the cemetery two days after the internment. It had taken time for the news to reach her in Israel, and still more time to both get there and secure some vacation days. As Jackson Gibbs was not technically a blood relative, her employers refused to give her time for Shiva for him. If McGee had not thought to email the news to her, she probably still would not know. She parked just inside and headed into the office. The clerk looked at her oddly and she had a moment of self-consciousness. After all, she was not dressed in what would be typical mourning clothing in America. Instead, she was wearing the same clothing she'd been wearing for days, the clothing she'd torn the moment she'd found out about Jack. She was aware that she probably looked strange to gentile eyes with her torn clothes, lack of makeup, and unwashed hair. But she was grieving in her own way, in her own tradition.

It was not the first time, nor would it probably be the last that she stood Shiva for family, blood or not. Soon after hearing the news, she had gone to the synagogue to speak to the rabbi and say Kaddish for him, as she would also do at his graveside. After all, did blood truly matter when there was love? Gibbs had been a better father to her than Eli had. It was partially with this in mind that had her swear to say Yizkor for him on Shavu'ot. It was true that she was not the most devout and didn't observe all the traditions of her people, but there was comfort to be found in some of them. She had mourned her entire blood family. There was over two thousand years of history in her actions, and she would mourn part of her American family the same way Jews had been mourning for millennia.

Quietly, she said thank you and left the office to make her way to where he was buried. The raw earth stood out from the grassy outlines of others as a recent burial. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a stone, which she carefully laid next to the temporary grave marker. She stepped back, bowed her head and softly began to recite.

_"Yisgadal v'yiskadash sh'mei rabbaw (Amen)  
B'allmaw dee v'raw chir'usei_  
_v'yamlich malchusei,b'chayeichon, uv'yomeichon,_  
_uv'chayei d'chol beis yisroel,_  
_ba'agawlaw u'vizman kawriv, v'imru: Amen._  
_Amen. Y'hei sh'mei rabbaw m'vawrach l'allam u'l'allmei allmayaw_  
_Y'hei sh'mei rabbaw m'vawrach l'allam u'l'allmei allmayaw._  
_Yis'bawrach, v'yishtabach, v'yispaw'ar, v'yisromam, v'yis'nasei,_  
_v'yis'hadar, v'yis'aleh, v'yis'halawl sh'mei d'kudshaw b'rich hu_  
_b'rich hu._ _L'aylaw min kol birchawsaw v'shirawsaw,_  
_tush'b'chawsaw v'nechemawsaw, da'ami'rawn b'all'maw, v'imru: Amein_  
_Y'hei shlawmaw rabbaw min sh'mayaw,v'chayim_  
_awleinu v'al kol yisroel, v'imru: Amein_  
_Oseh shawlom bim'ro'mawv, hu ya'aseh shawlom,_  
_awleinu v'al kol yisroel v'imru: Amein_ "

By the time she finished saying Kaddish, tears were running down her face. She knew Gibbs had a rough history with his father, but she had liked the old man the few times she had met him, and as the father of her _chosen_ father, as far as she was concerned, he might as well be her grandfather. She stood there in silence for a few minutes, so focused on her current task she didn't hear the footfalls behind her. Her eyes closed tightly as she felt familiar lips press a kiss to her temple and a warm arm snake around her shoulders. "C'mon, Ziver," a familiar voice said softly. "Dad's body is here, but he isn't. Let's go home."

Home. It was what she'd left in search of; home and herself. She allowed him to lead her back to her rental car, and then followed Gibbs as he drove back to a familiar house and an even more familiar basement, filled with various tools and bits and pieces of woodworking projects. She'd left the year before, only to find, in mourning, that she'd never really needed to leave after all.

Finis.

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Author's Note 2: Since FFN won't allow us to post links, google "Kaddish Mourning prayer" and Jewish mourning customs" to find what sources I used... both searches on the first page.


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